EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told a House panel last week that the agency’s draft proposed Clean Water Act jurisdiction rule is “very, very early in the process” of interagency review, but did not indicate whether she would send the draft rule to EPA’s science advisors for an external peer review.
Testifying before the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee, McCarthy sought to respond to criticism from congressional Republicans about why EPA did not submit the draft proposed rule to EPA’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) in September, at the same time it was sent to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for interagency review. McCarthy said EPA is “going to be complying with our statutory obligations” for peer reviews, but did not elaborate further.
Republicans on the panel charged that the Environmental Research, Development and Demonstration Act of 1978 requires EPA to submit a proposed rule to the SAB for review at the same time it submits it to the OMB if the rule is deemed “economically significant.”
It has been reported that the draft rule would allow EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to assert Clean Water Act jurisdiction over all natural and artificial tributary streams, lakes, ponds and wetlands in floodplains and riparian areas that affect the chemical, physical and biological integrity of larger, downstream navigable waters, as well as wetlands and streams that are adjacent to, neighbor to or separated from jurisdictional wetlands or waters by artificial berms. Congressional Republicans have been harshly critical of proposals to redefine the scope of the Clean Water Act, saying it represents an unprecedented expansion of federal authority.